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NIH goes back to college for peer review

Responding to the need for better expertise has so far been met with positive feedback, Membership in the newly formed College to assess multidisciplinary grant applications, according to CSR internal evaluations. is by invitation only. As Medicine the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) “The work that is proposed in grant went to press, the CSR had asked close to 600 is inviting a select cohort of researchers applications is so much broader than it used researchers to join the club, with roughly 80% to serve as retained reviewers for complex to be,” says Keith Yamamoto, executive vice of responders accepting the offer. The agency proposals. dean of the University of California–San is now sending out around 100 invitations The NIH Center for Scientific Review Francisco School of Medicine, who co-chaired every few days, according to George Chacko, (CSR) in Bethesda, Maryland is taking a the working group that evaluated the NIH’s who heads the CSR’s bioengineering sciences page from academic journals and recruiting peer review system in 2007–2008. “Overall, and technologies integrated review group. more than 2,000 scientists to serve on its the [College] idea is good and it moves in The names of all of the College members equivalent of an editorial board. Affiliates the direction of addressing what has become are scheduled to be posted this month, the of this ‘College of CSR Reviewers’ will act as a systemic problem in the way that study agency says. first-stage experts for translational and other sections were conceived.” John Raymond, vice president for academic multifaceted research topics by providing CSR director Toni Scarpa says that having affairs and provost at the Medical University written critiques of up to 12 applications a precommitted reviewers will increase the of South Carolina in Charleston, is waiting by year. efficiency and improve the quality of the his mailbox with baited breath. “I hope I get A second panel will then take the peer-review process for grant programs, an invitation, because it will be an honor and College reviewers’ recommendations such as the transformative R01s—launched a privilege to serve,” says Raymond, who was into consideration when discussing the in 2008 to support studies that produce new awarded the CSR’s 2009 Marcy Speer award applications and assigning final priority ‘research paradigms’—where broad expertise for his years of service on review committees. scores. The two-stage, editorial board- is required. “Rather than reinventing the “The quality of peer review at the NIH is the style review, which was piloted over the wheel, it’s better to have a list of really best in the world, but, like all good things, it past two years for some small-business good people who we know are wonderful can be improved.” and transformative R01 grant applications, reviewers,” he says. Elie Dolgin, New York

Sacked advisor launches private panel

The scientist fired from the British At its first meeting on 14 January, government’s Advisory Council on the members of the ISCD agreed to Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last year has investigate the risks of so-called legal launched a privately funded scientific highs such as , which committee to advise the public on the have garnered attention recently in the

© 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. All rights Inc. America, Nature © 2010 risks of use. UK, and to reexamine drugs such as David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist ketamine. Instead of drawn out debate from Imperial College in London, was over drug classification, the team will dropped from the ACMD in October after incorporate multiple-criteria decision his remarks contradicting the government’s analysis, a risk management system used classification of marijuana reached the by nuclear waste disposal experts. The press. Last month he announced the government’s and the public’s perception launch of his group, of the new group will depend both on

Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD). Psychopharmacology for Association British how delicately the group navigates its The new committee has 14 members, first year, and on how media covers it, A-Nutt-her advisory group: Sacked scientist four of whom resigned from the ACMD in adds Steve Alexander, a pharmacologist David Nutt protest of Nutt’s sacking. Five remaining at Nottingham University. “If they’re too members of the ACMD have expressed hopes to add more chemists and at least iconoclastic, it’s not going to be easy for interest in straddling the two committees, one physician to the group and that he is in them,” he says. according to Nutt—and the UK Home talks with sociologists and epidemiologists to In mid-January, Les Iversen, a retired Office confirmed that ACMD members examine the social effects of drugs. academic at the , may sit on any outside organization. “We need more than just a harm ranking UK, was appointed as interim chairman Toby Jackson, a manager of Swiss and or someone saying that this is the effect of at ACMD. He has reportedly in the past British hedge funds, has offered to cover methedrone or BZP [benzylpiperazine] on expressed views about marijuana’s operating expenses of around £150,000 the human body,” notes Danny Kushlick, safety relative to tobacco that were ($245,000) for the ISCD’s first three head of Policy and Communications of similar to the statements that put Nutt years, although smaller donations have Transform Foundation, a UK under fire. come in from the public. Nutt says he drugs think tank, “it’s a social science, too.” Lucas Laursen, Cambridge, UK

nature medicine volume 16 | number 2 | february 2010 143